


Sardum mel pessimi saporis

by Incapability



Series: Dropping plotlines like stitches from my knitting needles [1]
Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Mind Control, Revenge, Sexual Abuse, Trauma, Witches finding their strength, ras needs to deal with his toxic BS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-16 04:06:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18513562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Incapability/pseuds/Incapability
Summary: How strange that in a matter of days her life has become a golden, sweet, sticky nightmare. There has been dancing and laughter and music, always music, and Zelda wants to tear off her skin, to crawl out of herself because then, maybe, she will be free again. Free from the simpering and the smiles and the sighs at night.





	Sardum mel pessimi saporis

*

  
   
„ _Oh_.“  
   
The silly little sigh flutters away into the air like a butterfly, and Zelda would like to vomit. Not only because of the revolting metaphore, but because of the noise itself.  

  
Not that she has any say in whether or not she gets to unburden herself, whether it’s from the sugary sigh or from the man moving on top of her who elicited it.  

  
When he hears her, his hips snap faster for a few seconds, and he grins at her with that shit-eating expression she has never liked, not even sort-of-against-her-will, and growls: „You _like_ that, huh?“  
   
As a matter of fact, Zelda is teetering on the edge between bored and disturbed, but her head feels a little fuzzy, like her brain is coated in honey from Hilda’s bees, and maybe it is, because that would certainly explain the thrice-damned sugary sweetness that slips from her mouth.  
„Oh _yes_ , husband, _yes_!“  
   
Thankfully, that seems to be what he wanted to hear, because he finishes moments later, groans and flops down beside her.  
Zelda longs to light a cigarette, but her arms won’t move to pick one up, just as they haven’t in days.

She also longs to tell her new husband that she absolutely hates the dresses she bought today, has no idea how she picked them in the first place, but all she manages is another sickness-inspiring sigh.

  
   
„I’ll be meeting with the Council tomorrow. Now that the old anti-pope has been  laid to rest, they will be looking for a successor.“

  
   
She can hear the silent part: he intends to throw his hat into the ring, and he firmly expects to succeed. Zelda knows there is something she should tell him, something about old Nestor and his weakness for old wine and new gossip, but she cannot grasp the thought, because suddenly, she worries: „Oh, but what am I to do without you all day, husband?“  
She has simpered that word so often today, it feels like it lost all meaning. An un-word.  
   
„We’re in Italy, dear. Find yourself some lovely shoes to go with your new dresses.“  
   
More shopping. Fantastic. For all that Zelda likes looking her best, she hasn’t enjoyed shopping in at least sixty years, because dress-making has taken a turn for the worse to say it kindly. And yet, she smiles beatifically up at Faustus and, confronted with the sudden urge to express her gratitude for his generosity, her admiration for his ambition, she sits up to press a kiss to his cheek, which lands with a breathy little laugh that cloys in her throath like so much sirup and makes her feel disgusting.  

  
Or, wait, is it maybe the sticky feeling between her thighs now that she shifted around? Either way, Zelda suddenly feels _icky_ and _nasty_ and absolutely _must_ clean herself up.  
   
„Excuse me, husband, but I really must freshen up.“ He looks at her in confusion, and Zelda understands where he’s coming from, because she’s never been squeamish about the more unromantic aspects of … well, _that_. But now she absolutely cannot stand another minute of it, and when he nods, she slinks off into the bathroom, quickly quickly.  
   
When she returns a few minutes later, wrapped in a peachy silk nightgown, she stops and looks at the music box he gave her upon their arrival in Rome. It’s odd how much she likes it, because the tune is just as sickeningly sweet as her sighs and her voice and the dresses she bought today, but her hand moves towards it anyway.  
   
As the dancer spins prettily, Zelda begins to spin too, smiling at her husband with every turn, if only because she hopes that this way, her body might somehow catch up with her brain.

  
   
*

  
   
Zelda hums as she packs golden brown leather shoes and honey yellow dresses because her husband told her to. They return to Greendale today, a week early, because there was an attack on the coven. The council will come with them, because Faustus has achieved his goal, he will be the anti-pope, and he does not want to let them out of his grasp before the papal crown is firmly on his head. He does not want to let anyone, any _thing_ out of his grasp once he has a hold on it.

  
Zelda unpacks the last dress to refold it, because there was a wrinkle, and she can feel it like an itch on the back of her neck. She refolds the dress five times before it is perfect.

  
 How strange that in a matter of days her life has become a golden, sweet, sticky nightmare. There has been dancing and laughter and music, always music, and Zelda wants to tear off her skin, to crawl out of herself because then, maybe, she will be free again. Free from the simpering and the smiles and the sighs at night.

  
When she looks into the gilded mirror in front of her, she can see the reflection of the music box behind her. She smiles serenely as she thinks of that film Sabrina obsessed over in one of her emancipatory rages. _The Stepford Wives_.  

  
And as the little figurine spins on top of the box, Zelda thinks of all the wheels and cogs inside that make her turn. She looks at herself in the mirror and wonders, if she tore off her skin, whether she would find flesh or machinery.

  
   
   
*

  
   
Sabrina died.    
   
Sabrina _died_ and came back to life and killed a gaggle of witch hunters, and all Zelda does is stand there with a vacant smile. Every part of her mind is straining like the flies that sometimes get caught in the open honey jar on their breakfast table. She always delighted in fishing them out and squashing them on the table, to the protest of both her sister and her niece.  
   
With her husband’s leave – with his Unholy Eminence’s leave – she takes Hilda to her rooms for tea. She can hear herself rebuffing Hilda’s concerns, much more gently, more demurely, more coldly than usual, and she still can’t lose the perpetual smile as Hilda frowns. She appears more deeply cut by the smiles and the formalities than by a knife to the throat.  
   
Then there’s the music box again, and the spinning, and Zelda still can’t catch up with herself. So she fetches the tea tray instead, and pours from an impossible height. Maybe she hopes that she will scald herself beyond recognition, but nothing breaks the domestic perfection that has been sticking to her for days.  
   
Over Hilda’s protest, she keeps dropping sugar cubes into the cups, because sweetness has become inescapable, and yet she can never get rid of the bitter taste in her mouth.

  
   
   
*

  
   
   
 When the spell breaks, it’s like her head breaks through the surface of an ocean of honey, thick and sticky. Zelda feels like she can breathe again, and she doesn’t even mind the mingling smells of lime and blood that linger in the kitchen, but she can feel the remainders of the enchantment clinging to her skin, stuck in her ears.  

  
It takes a few minutes to get her bearings after the initial shock, and she doesn’t protest as Hilda ushers her into her usual chair and pours her a glass of scotch.  
The smokiness is a relief, and so is the cigarette she finally manages to light. She clenches her fingers around the holder just to see if she can, and quickly takes another drag  when her fingers won’t unclench right away.  
   
Stupid. How could she have been so stupid, so reckless? Not even a day into her marriage, and she’d let herself get cursed, and now look where it had brought them, with Sabrina under threat and Ambrose under arrest, and poor Leviathan in pieces. She can see his remains soaking through the paper bag and onto the counter, and takes grim satisfaction in the filth, the goriness of it.    
   
There is no time to be wasted, even though she wants to stay at their kitchen table forever and revel in the peace and quiet and freedom. But Zelda thinks of the sand running through on Faustus‘ desk when she left him, and she knows she has to go back. Well, this time, she won’t be dancing. This time, she will be marching.

  
   
   
*

  
   
   
Zelda enters their chamber, and the smile on her face is sincere for the first time since she took her vows, because she’s made sure to wipe the bloody bag over this abomination of a dress, and the bloody stain is a lovely addition to the floral print.  
Her smile widens as she places the bag directly in her husband’s hand.  
He grimaces, but after he’s peered inside, he nods. „Very well done, my dear. I take it no one has given you any trouble?“  
   
„Oh _no_ , your Unholy Eminence,“ she breathes, and he nods again.    
   
„Good. I’ve some work left to do and cannot be disturbed. Go to bed, Zelda.“  
   
That night, after she leaves her husband and before she goes to bed as he told her – and what comfort she takes in that! – Zelda burns the bloody bloodied dress and takes a scalding bath. She stays underwater for as long as she can, with only her own heartbeat for company, and only gets out when her skin turns red and wrinkled and _ugly_.  
   
 When Faustus joins her hours later, she pretends very hard to be asleep.

  
   
*

  
   
Faustus has been busy, praise Satan, and most of his orders have been for mundane, everyday tasks. Zelda has taken comfort in small acts of subversion – a moment of hesitation, an eyeroll when she’s sure he’s not looking, not quite enough sugar in his tea. She’d never noticed how sweet he takes it.

  
After the botched execution, it gives her particular pleasure to pour it out as the council strips him of the coveted new title.    
No sugar at all this time, she thinks, only bitterness.

  
   
   
*

  
   
The new doctrine hits her like a sucker punch. So this is what he took his anger out on, Zelda thinks as she reads the little booklet in disbelief.    
   
„What do you think, dear?“, he asks before she can quite finish, and Zelda takes a deep breath to buy some time.

  
This is dreadful, is what she thinks, absolutely dreadful. But what would her honey-sweet self say? Nothing of substance, that’s for sure, and for once, it’s a comfort.  

  
She decides to start with a smile, even though the edges of her mouth feel heavier than lead, and breathes out as she says, „It seems so smart, husband. So …“  
   
Zelda tries to find an adjective, but Faustus doesn’t let her finish. „So traditional? You’re right, Zelda. Departure from tradition is what brought desaster upon our coven, ever since the days of your brother Edward.“  
   
She can feel her eye twitch, but Faustus is so absorbed in his rant that he does not notice, thank Satan. As he keeps pacing and going on and on, Zelda tunes him out and returns to the pamphlet to read it in more detail. The council must be informed at once. But with Faustus‘ iron grip on both them and her, there is only one way to get to them.

  
   
   
*

  
   
   
Hilda is just as appalled as she ought to be, for the brief moment they can speak, before Faustus interrupts them. He is easily distracted by another layer of waxy red to her lips, and Hilda manages to slip out of the mirror as he slips towards Zelda, his hand in her hair.  
   
She blows smoke into his face, as if it might slow him down, and his fingers tighten. „You know I dislike that, Zelda. But I do have a moment to spend with my pretty wife. It would be such a shame to let your effort go to waste.“ He strokes the side of her face, and it takes every ounce of her strength to keep breathing. „Why don’t you turn on the music box, dear, and we can have ourselves a little dance.“  
   
_The things I do for this family_ , she thinks as she puts out the cigarette and gets up.    
   
_The things I do for this family_ , she thinks as she winds up the box, still terrified that the music will pull her under again, coat her brain in sticky sweetness and weigh down her limbs.  
   
_The things I do for this family_ , she thinks as she feels his arms encircle her from behind, too warm and too heavy, his hands on her buttons. She has been favouring buttons ever since the spell was broken. More layers, and a tiny nod to her true self even if the golden hues remain.  
   
_The things I do for this family_ , she thinks as she lets him kiss her, bitter bile rising in her throat, sweet sighs withheld as her only means of defiance. She lets him lay her down, and digs her nails into his back to prove she can still move her fingers at will, eyes locked on the ceiling. He hisses and groans, and Zelda thinks of flies stuck in honey, just waiting to be crushed.  

  
_The things I do …_

  
   
*

  
   
The following days are a balancing act of close calls: a strained smile just in time, tea that nearly misses the cup, Elspeth spared by the breadth of a hair. Her luck was bound to run out, and that it’s Prudence, another witch, who betrayed her sister, _her own blood_ for power, makes Zelda’s blood boil.  
   
She can feel the dagger in her hand even hours later, locked in the witches‘ cell, and her only regret is that she had to leave Leticia with _them_.  
   
The only sounds are her own breath and the damp drips of the cell, and Zelda tries to take comfort in that. No more tinkling music as a pretty figurine spins mindlessly. She will use this time, she thinks, to find back to herself in a way she hasn’t been able to yet, caught as she was between freedom and captivity.

Does it matter that the door had been unlocked, when she had to return to the cage anyway?

  
When the door to the cell opens, hours – days? – later, she tenses briefly, afraid that Faustus is back with the music box, with another picture, and will lock up the prison of her mind for good even as this physical prison is unlocked.    
   
But it’s not him, the silence is broken by words, not music, and fortified with the knowledge that Prudence has found her strength at long last, Zelda steps out into the dark night, into freedom.

  
   
   
*

  
   
   
When Prudence throws him at her feet months later, he looks ragged. Leaves are stuck in his robes, and the side of his face is strangely swollen.  
   
„We found him in Sardinia“, Prudence explains. „He got into it with a swarm of bees when he tried to hide in the greenery. But then again“, she bares her teeth, „herbology _is_ one of the more feminine arts. It appears that beekeeping is as well.“  
   
Zelda hums, and looks at him. She thinks of the nights since she left the witches’ cell, equal parts sleepless and filled with paralyzing nightmares. She feels Hilda’s hand on her elbow and tenses. The hand retreats at once, but Zelda is still angry with herself. Angry that she is not over it, angry that it happened in the first place. Angry with him.  
   
„Do you have the twins?“, she asks, and when Prudence nods, she makes herself look him in the eyes for the first time. They are wild, paranoid, and she finds herself disgusted with him.    
What a weak, pathetic creature. He could not take the hardship of his flight, it would seem, just as he could not take a wife with a mind of her own. It was his weakness, not hers, that turned her into a sweet porcelain doll without substance.    
   
Zelda is stronger than him, always has been, and perhaps he always knew it. Now she knows it too, and she knows that sleep will return to her. Maybe not today or this week or this month, but eventually.

She lights a cigarette, blows the smoke into his face and nods at Prudence.  
   
She slits her father’s throat without hesitation. He falls to the ground with a dull _thudd_ , and stops gurgling within seconds. The only sounds are the creaks of their old house, trusty and familiar.  
   
„Well“, Hilda says into the silence. „We got _that_ done just in time for tea. I’ve made fresh scones, too. D’you want them with jam or honey?“  
   
Zelda taps off the ashes, lets them fall into the pool of rapidly cooling blood without a second thought, and says, „You know, Hilda, I think I’ll have both.“     
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 

**Author's Note:**

> Sardum mel pessimi saporis: foul-tasting Sardinian honey
> 
> In ancient Rome, Sardinian honey was believed to be bitter due to the herbs that grew on the island.


End file.
